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ANTONIO L. DOADRIO Y COLS. AN. R. ACAD. NAC. FARM.

Table 4. The absolute values of the logarithmic of the observed constant K

RATS WITHOUT COPPER RATS WITH COPPER

BLOOD 1.73 1.79
LIVER 2.16 1.86
SPLEEN 1.93 1.86
KIDNEY 1.93 1.93
LUNG 1.86 1.86

HEART 2.16 2.16

Copper would provoke a fall down of free cefotaxime to values
even below of those corresponding to the MIC (minimum inhibitory
concentration) to kill the microorganism that would cause the
infection, so that the activity of cefotaxime will decrease or even the
cephalosporin will not have activity in many cases. So, in poisoned
patients with copper, it is very important to bear in mind this fact
when they have to follow a course of treatment with Cefotaxime.

In order to determinate and compare the biological activity of the
complex, it was necessary to know the impact in the cell viability of
the free cefotaxime as well as the metal by it-self in the same
experimental conditions.

Dissolved copper in media culture has not a deleterious effect at
all on growing cells (data not shown) even a mM scale in the discs,
concluding that if the complex had any biological activity, it should
not be due to rests of metal in the complex.

The detailed results of the assays with cefotaxime are shown in
Table 5 and 6.

Shocking the B. subtilis CECT 356 strain (Table 5), which was
thought to be a not susceptible bacteria (1, 9), arose as the most
sensitive strain to cefotaxime, much more that even the well known
sensitive strains of E. coli used by us. However B. subtilis was not
sorted out in the past among the cefotaxime targeted species, perhaps
due to be not a clinical bacteria, we strongly ask to favour their use
as standard in sensitivity tests in the future.

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